


The First Step

by psych0tastic



Series: The Way Forward [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Karasuno's fabulous megane duo unf, Kiyoko and Tsukishima finally interacting, M/M, Tsukiyama friendship, Tsukiyama preslash, like why haven't they already??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:12:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1919433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psych0tastic/pseuds/psych0tastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukishima cooks, gets friendship advice and makes a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Step

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the very night after Yamaguchi’s confrontation with Tsukki during the training camp.

Tsukishima stepped out of the showers, drying his hair roughly with the towel draped over his shoulders. Even though practice had since concluded for the day, even though he was a long corridor away from the practice halls, he could still hear the harsh squeals of sports shoes against waxed floorboards, the dull thuds of volleyballs against flesh and floor and unintelligible loud shouts in the distance - most probably the King and the shortie busy doing their thing  _again_ .

On any other day, those noises would have flooded him with intense irritation and caused his lip to curl in distaste and scorn. Today though…

He could still remember a hand fisting his collar, burning eyes and a voice edged with desperation and frustration. He remembered the conversation he had with the captains of the Nekoma and Fukurodani, how Bokuto’s eyes had gleamed in the fluorescent lighting and the words that had rankled him:

_Isn’t that because you suck at it?_

_It’s a matter of whether ‘that moment’ exists for you or not._

_Motivation? What more do you need than pride!!_

Tsukishima’s hand stilled even as his gaze darkened in thought.

All those words had forced him to this point – to a point where he realized that a decision had to be made, and fast. If he continued as he was now, he would be left behind sooner or later, and one day Yamaguchi would look back like he did today only to see a sprawling field devoid of a hint of his presence. It was obvious that Yamaguchi’s extra training with Shimada was starting to yield fruit - his stamina was improving, as was his frequency of successful float jump serves - gradually and steadily. Tonight, Tsukishima came to the sudden realization that his only friend of seven years was distracted from him, looking in a direction different from he was, where he had blindly and guilelessly followed Tsukishima before.

One very possible course of action would be to quit playing volleyball entirely. ([#](http://mangafox.me/manga/haikyuu/v10/c089/3.html))

It wasn’t a foreign notion to him – the idea had surfaced back in his childhood when he first found out the devastating truth about his brother. The very sport that had tied them together forced them apart, and where volleyball used to fill him with a sense of pride, a sense of joy that he was closer to his amazing ace of a big brother, it begun to fill him with bitterness instead. Where there had been heady thrill at being able to successfully execute a block or a spike, there was a gaping hollow ache. The fierce fervour he used to feel for the sport had morphed into an angry sort of restlessness that clawed at his insides and frustrated him and he  **_hated_ ** it – hated the emotions that the stupid sport made him feel, hated how it was the cause of his brother’s agony; the cause of the wedge that developed between them.

He wasn’t sure why he continued playing the sport, even up till and into high school. A sense of nostalgia perhaps. A sense of loyalty, maybe? Volleyball was a comfortable routine, and Tsukishima simply… continued on with it. The childish anger had faded over the years into an apathy tinged with poignancy. He might not have the enthusiasm for it anymore, but he sometimes remembered the times where he _did_ , getting flashes from his childhood years in the midst of executing simple, mundane actions like looking up to the ball and raising an arm up in a serve, bending down to pick up a stray ball, wiping sweat away from his brow…..

Tch, now he was getting sentimental.

It was logical for him to quit, wasn’t it, since he wasn’t going anywhere with it in the first place. At the rate he was going, he was going to get replaced as a regular and in all honesty, what was the point of being in a sports club when you only warmed the bench? There was a reason why both Sugawara-san and Yamaguchi were fighting so hard for a chance to stand on the court, afterall. He should save Coach Ukai the trouble of having to make the decision at all by ending his ridiculous relationship with volleyball himself.

Tsukishima stared down at his open palm, distantly registering how his fingertips trembled, how his heart was clenched tight in his chest.

He really,  _logically, should_ – so why the hell was his body reacting like this, goddamnit…

Tsukishima sighed. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself back to his usual calm state. He breathed, long and deep, letting the scent of clean soap and fried rice wash over him in a gentle, soothing tide.

His eyes flew open.

_Hold up. Fried rice?_

With the beginnings of a frown scrunching up his forehead, Tsukishima started to track the source of the smell, tugging his towel off his shoulders to fist it in his left hand somewhere along the way. It had him trailing deeper into the building, to the area where he vaguely recalled a kitchen was located. As he neared, the scent strengthened and went straight to his stomach, reminding him in painful, aching pangs just how many grueling hours had passed since lunch.

Then he paused.

A distance away in aforementioned kitchen, Kiyoko was holding onto the handle of a wok with one hand, a spatula in her other. Oil sizzled faintly and the scent of the fried rice wafted over to where he was, intoxicating and strong.

He watched her delicate wrist flick the spatula quickly and efficiently, shifting the rice around in the wok. A hazy memory buried in the deep recesses of his mind surfaced, unbidden, and he recalled a time where he would gush over the quick work of his mum’s fingers as she prepared and arranged lunchboxes for both him and his brother in the early hours of the morning. He recalled the first time his mum had turned to him, smiling, asking him, _“Would you like to prepare Niichan’s bento with me, Kei-kun?”_ ; the shy delight that flooded his small body when he nodded a yes; the pleased thrill that extended all the way to his fingertips when his brother had gasped, laughed and ruffled his hair upon finding out who had been responsible for the seaweed crow in his bento that day. ([#](http://ffffound.com/image/4fdec010c6387e3ecdb2fcefb628edf4b88a5c36?c=1442246))

He gently shook himself out of his daze, just in time to catch Kiyoko’s gaze drift over to him.

They stared at each other silently.

“Do you…” he paused. Then thought to himself:  _ah, whatever._

“Would you like some help with dinner?” he asked.

A look of surprise flitted across the pretty face of Karasuno’s manager. But just as quickly as it came – it went. He met her considering gaze straight on until she gave a single decisive nod and angled her dainty chin towards the pile of ingredients to the left of her.

“You can help with the soup, if you want,” she murmured, going back to her fried rice. “Aprons are in the fourth drawer.” He gave her a tuneless hum in acquiescence, flicked his towel over the back of a chair and walked over, giving the ingredients a cursory glance as he slung an apron around his neck:

Kabu; shiitake mushrooms; tofu; green onions.

_Ah, how trite,_ he mused to himself with some amount of wry amusement, even as he finished off the bow of an orange apron at his back.  _But at least it won’t be hard to make._

He gave the chopping board a cursory rinse and wipe-down with a clean cloth, rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He sensed Kiyoko glancing over to him more than once as he cleaned the kabu, removed the leaves and chopped it into even wedges with minimal strokes of the knife. It was as he set a pot of water to boil that he made a thoughtful noise, drawing the manager’s attention.

“Now that I think about it,” Tsukishima drawled lightly, not looking up from the daishi he was preparing. “Where is Karasuno’s manager-in-training? Shouldn’t she be the one helping you prepare food for the black holes?”

There was a stretch of silence as Kiyoko was distracted transferring the fried rice over to a large bowl. Tsukishima watched on for a moment, before shifting the tofu aside to help her tilt the large wok up for her to scrape the rest of the rice over. When it was all done, she finally turned to give his question her fullest attention.

“Yachi went over to the practice halls.” Tsukishima caught sight of a small smile gracing Kiyoko’s features as she spoke out of the corner of his eye. “I think she wanted to chart Hinata and Kageyama’s progress for herself – she was really restless while she was here, so I sent her over.”

He gave a thoughtful hum.

“Isn’t that a sign of a bad manager though, being unable to concentrate on the task at hand?” he pressed. “And leaving you to manage so much food by yourself too, honestly.”

He watched her blink slowly, consideringly; noted how her lips pursed minutely in thought before opening her mouth to answer.

“Well… I think it’s promising that she’s taken a strong interest in something about the club. And it’ll help the team in the end, so,” she shrugged – lightly; airily. “I don’t mind.”

Tsukishima was about to lose all interest in the conversation when Kiyoko nonchalantly added, “Besides. I would feel safer about having parental supervision on those two anyway.”

A pause.

Then a surprised huff of laughter escaped him before he could even think to stop it.

He considered the tiny quirk of Kiyoko’s lips, the way her hair fell over to hide her eyes and the way she focused all her attention resolutely on the vegetables she was preparing to saute. He experienced the first stirrings of deference and affection for this girl who had quietly and unassumingly looked after an unruly flock of volleyballers on her own for all this time.

“Touché,” he offered, smirk growing on his face. Kiyoko gave a soft hum that was barely audible over the bubbling of water and the hiss of oil against the heat of the pan. The two of them basked in the comfort of the quiet, continuing with their own respective dishes.

For the first time in a long while, Tsukishima found himself relaxing in the presence of somebody who was neither his mother nor Yamaguchi.

It had been a long-standing concern of his parents, the way he shunned people and scoffed at them ever since he was a child - the complete opposite of his elder brother who grinned and reveled in the presence of people and their chatter. To him, the socially normative scripts everyday conversations were built upon were absolutely tedious and pointless. People who kept trying to initiate conversation with him irritated him. Sometimes, he would simply place his headphones over his ears and deliberately ignore these very people, pretending to tap his feet to music that he wasn’t actually listening to. 

Usually, it was good enough of a hint. For the more persistent ones however, he had come to develop a more active approach.

There was a reason why he had honed the act of mocking people to an art at such an early age.

It didn’t just cause people to drop conversation; it made them  _stay away_ . It was as much an offense as it was a defense, and Tsukishima wielded it like a well-loved mace - striking with skill and blunt force that stunned.

Unbeknownst to anybody else, it was a test he subjected people to as well, as a means to judge their character and propensity. How long would it take for them to snap, how much would it take for them to break? Would they lash out in anger, retaliate in kind, or slink away with their tails between their legs?

Kageyama and Hinata had failed it absolutely miserably like another one of their school quizzes, reacting quickly to his cutting words like a reflex, but unable to receive his verbal serves ultimately. It was why Tsukishima had deemed interacting them as a waste of time from the get-go.

And then there was Kiyoko - Kiyoko, who didn’t just receive it gracefully but served it right back, passing his little test with flying colours, like Yamaguchi did.

Or, well, didn’t. Not exactly, anyway.

Tsukishima remembered being highly perplexed by Yamaguchi when he was a kid. He had thought that Yamaguchi’s initial enamour of him stemmed from him “saving” him that one time, from him being “cool” with his lack of social graces and abundance of height. He had thought that Yamaguchi would leave after he found out how awkward Tsukishima was around people and how harsh he could be.

But he didn’t.

Even when Tsukishima’s sharp tongue had made him curl into himself, had made him feel worse about himself, had made him cry that one time - he stayed. He even went beyond staying to seek Tsukishima out of his own violation, showing up at his door every morning back when they were in elementary school so that they could go to school together, even though the Tsukishima residence wasn’t even on the way. Every morning, Tsukishima would be greeted by Yamaguchi bounding up to him with a wide grin and flyaway hair, exuberantly exclaiming a loud “Good morning, Tsukki!”. He would chatter away excitedly without expecting him to participate in the conversation, but was always absolutely gleeful when he did, so much so that it caused Tsukishima to flush in embarrassment when he was younger at how sincerely appreciative this awkward, freckled boy was over something so small.

It was an unconditional relationship and Tsukishima had grown to take his presence for granted.

Until today.

_The way you’ve been lately is really pathetic!!!_

“Do you think Yamaguchi and I really are friends,” he blurted to the bubbling pot on the stove.

The splutter of Kiyoko’s frying pan was his only response.

He swallowed and flicked his gaze over to where Kiyoko stood, caught sight of her staring unabashedly at him without an expression on her face and hurriedly jerked his head away. 

He heard rather than saw her lower the heat of the stove. The bubbling and sizzling obediently fell to a muted volume, making way for a talk he wasn’t willing to touch with a ten feet pole, much less engage in. The two of them stood silently, locked in a stalemate, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Tsukishima felt the beginnings of a flush crawl across his face.

Kiyoko cleared her throat. When she next spoke, her voice was bland and toneless - and Tsukishima was beginning to suspect that she was an ESPer because he knew that a tone of anything but would have caused him to U-turn and stalk right out of the conversation immediately.

“Did… something happen between the two of you?” she asked tentatively.

“…something,” he offered. He narrowed his gaze at the pot, which jerked nervously beneath his grasp on its handle. 

He took a deep breath.

“It just. _Maybe_.  Something happened that made me think that I may not know him as well as I thought I did,” Tsukishima finally expressed. That said, he let out a sigh and started to mix the yellow miso in with the daishi. Beside him, Kiyoko let out a soft ‘ah’ and passed him a bowl of soaked wakame. He wordlessly took it.

“Well,” she said. The way she spoke was slow and each word was articulated thoughtfully, as though she was carefully considering every one of them before they left her mouth. “You are very obviously his friend."

He considered her pause, that was ladened with meaning.

“…but?” he prompted.

“It’s a little harder to tell if he’s yours.”

Tsukishima’s hands froze in midaction for a split second, hovering unsteadily in the air. “…I see,” he finally said. He couldn’t quite bring himself to move his hands, afraid that he might actually end up throwing something. He was just about to very carefully put the jar of miso down when Kiyoko spoke up again.

“But sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes, when you stay back to wait for him; when you automatically shift to make space for him right next to you… it shows.”

She looked over to him even as Tsukishima turned, locking searching gazes with her.

“He knows,” she said gently; firmly.

Something welled up deep within his chest and Tsukishima had to look away. He found himself staring into the cloudy depths of the soup pot, watching the way the broth burbled. “Does he though,” he murmured absent-mindedly, to nobody in particular. 

Kiyoko made a noise that could mean anything in the world.

“If you want, I suppose you could try being more expressive,” she said thoughtfully. “Just a little, though.”

Tsukishima considered the notion. And then he narrowed his eyes at her and made an expression of sheer distaste. 

“By ‘expressive’, I hope you don’t mean for me to make stupid loud speeches and cry on the court like the rest of the volleyidiots.”

“…but why not?”

Shocked, he jerked and turned sharply to stare at Kiyoko in disbelief, only to catch sight of her stifling a small smile and how bright her eyes were behind pink-rimmed spectacles. For the second time that night, Tsukishima huffed a light, stunned laugh, which caused Kiyoko’s smile to widen - painfully slowly and beautifully - and in that moment, Tsukishima could finally see why Tanaka, Nishinoya and so many other boys were so taken with this woman before his eyes. He willed his gaze away from her faint dimples and back to the pot, which contents had long since started to fill the kitchen with the warm, comforting scent of miso soup.

Kiyoko was visibly surprised when he offered her a tasting cup.

She was visibly even more so when she tasted it.

“This…” Kiyoko’s eyes widened. She licked her lips. She smoothly tucked her hair behind her ear before going in for a second sip. “This is…  _nice_ .”

She sounded so surprised Tsukishima couldn’t help but feel insulted.

“Che, what did you expect,” he muttered, sipping at his own tasting cup. “For me to be like those incapable idiots, who cultivated crops when they were supposed to cook rice?”  ([#](http://hikikomori-sama.tumblr.com/post/72340829675) )

“Ah, of course not. I apologize,” Kiyoko said, hiding her smile behind her cup. 

Tsukishima eyed her suspiciously, then sighed and turned away with a grouchy, ‘whatever’. He was in the midst of cutting green onions into the soup for added flavour when Kiyoko spoke up once again.

“Garigari-kun.”

“…Excuse me?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Garigari-kun,” she repeated. “Nishinoya always buys them to share. Perhaps you could try that?”

Tsukishima’s other eyebrow rose to join the first. “What on earth does  flavoured ice have to do with friendship?” he asked, genuinely bewildered.

Kiyoko shrugged. “I’m not sure either. But you could tell me, if you find out.”

Tsukishima was just opening his mouth to shoot down that frankly inane, ridiculous suggestion when he was interrupted by the loud pattering of feet in the distance, the grating screech of shoe soles against the floor and a familiar barrage of shouts.

“Uwaaaah! Shimizu-senpai cooked dinner for us today!!”

Hinata was happily bounding up to the counter to take in the sights and smells of dinner better when he realized who exactly was behind said counter, alongside ‘Shimizu-senpai’. His eyes grew to saucer-like proportions and Tsukishima could practically hear the rusty gears of his brain crank into place, trying to make the connections.

“ _T-T-T-T-Ts_ -”

Tsukishima cocked his head to one side and smiled sweetly. His glasses gleamed ominously under the light. “Yes?”

Hinata shrieked.

Kageyama barrelled into him from behind and slapped a hand forcefully over his mouth.

“Hinata, you dumbass!!” he shouted, face red from practice and racing the hyperactive ball of energy that was one Hinata Shouyou down the corridor, “If you make so much noise, the Captain will get ma - ”

Kageyama caught sight of Tsukishima. Stared at the orange apron he was wearing. Back at Tsukishima.

Tsukishima blinked.

He was highly amused when Kageyama rapidly blanched and whispered faintly, “G-ghostly possession?”

It seemed that Yachi’s weird imagination was spreading.

“Aliens!” Hinata argued. “Tsukishima was abducted and replaced by aliens!!”

“No way, dumbass! Tsukishima has to be possessed!”

“Tsukishima is standing right here, you know, with a knife,” aforementioned Tsukishima said blandly. He tilted it such that the sharp edge of it gleamed dangerously and captivated the horrified gazes of the other two first years. Before he could lay down a threat, however, he felt a sharp tug on his shirt sleeve and was met with the smallest hint of a displeased frown on Kiyoko’s face.

He sniffed in disappointment and reluctantly placed the knife back into the sink.

“Hush,” Kiyoko told Hinata, who had been mere seconds away from crowing at Tsukishima for getting scolded by Karasuno’s manager. Hinata’s face fell and it was such a heartbreaking sight that Kiyoko quickly changed tactics; “Help me bring the food out to the table?”

“OSU!!”

Tsukishima hefted the substantial bowl of fried rice in his hands and was about to leave the kitchen when a gentle hand at his elbow stopped him. Kiyoko’s gaze was a quiet, serious thing, and Tsukishima found it difficult to look away.

“Everybody’s friendships are different,” she told him quietly. “Yours and Yamaguchi’s might not have touching speeches or Garigari popsicles - but that doesn’t matter. It just boils down to give and take, just like everything else.

Just like with volleyball.”

He jerked. It was the hand pressed to his elbow that calmed him; that steadied the bowl of fried rice he held.

“It’s only when you put in the effort, that it will show and come into fruitation. Maybe it won’t,” she said firmly, interrupting his retort. “But just know that by doing nothing, you condemn yourself to nothing.”

Tsukishima stared down at her. Kiyoko stared resolutely back.

“…what if I quit?” he whispered. Outside the kitchen, he could hear the voices of the other members of Karasuno’s volleyball team - Nishinoya and Tanaka’s enthusiastic gushing and Sugawara-san’s kind laughter. Kiyoko considered him intently.

“…as the club’s manager, I wouldn’t say anything because the team doesn’t need half-hearted members pulling them down,” she finally said. “But as Kiyoko Shimizu… I would selfishly say ‘please don’t’ and ‘stay’ because, well, as dysfunctional as it is, we have become a family and to see you leave would be… upsetting.”

Her eyes were clear and a beautiful silver in the light and this close, Tsukishima could see faint traces of blue blending into green in them and the distinct flecks of her irises. There wasn’t a hint of untruth lurking in those eyes of hers and Tsukishima wanted to say that her words didn’t affect him at all - but they did.

He let out a wry, distracted chuckle.

“You… that’s a really low blow, you know. Tanaka and Nishinoya will be after my head if I quit, now.”

“No,” she shook her head, silky black locks swaying with the movement. “A low blow would be asking you to picture Yamaguchi’s face, if you quit.”

It felt like she had struck him right in the gut, with how dizzily breathless he was.

Kiyoko’s hand squeezed his arm harder for a fleeting moment before it fell away. She took the fried rice into her own hands and left the kitchen on quiet feet, leaving him staring after her in her wake, stunned.

A distant part of him felt very impressed. The rest of him only felt numb.

_…it’s always the quiet ones, huh_ , he thought to himself, an odd smirk gracing his features. With tremulous fingers, he tugged his apron strings loose and slid out of its neck strap. He then took a deep breath, schooled his expression and sauntered out of the kitchen and into the dining area.

Which was in utter chaos.

“To live to be able to sample the creations of the amazing goddess Kiyoko-san…! This is what it means to be alive, Noya-san!”

“R-ryu!”

“Noya-saaaan!”

“The two of you - shut up already! Stop crying into the food!”

“Shimizu-senpai, everything looks amazing…!”

“I call this piece of yakitori!”

“Hinata, you bastard! That’s the biggest one! Oi! Don’t take so many at once, leave some for the others, dammit!!”

“Calm down you two, I’m sure there’s plenty enough to go around, alright?”

“The pot! The pot is falling off the edge of the table…!”

“T-tsukki?”

He startled. In the midst of all the ruckus, Yamaguchi had walked over to take his place by his side like he always had - unassumingly; steadfastly - for the past seven years. In the background of the rowdy, noisy crowd like they always were, Tsukishima studied Yamaguchi’s face, taking in the faint acne scars that were reminders to the way they first met, the spray of freckles across his cheeks - their pattern like age-old familiar constellations he could chart with his eyes closed.

Yamaguchi held up a water bottle.

“Here,” he said, a tentative awkward smile on his face. “You forgot this.”

A myriad of complicated, profound emotions suddenly surged up in Tsukishima like a tidal wave and sang through his veins, leaving his fingertips tingling and his chest full. There were so many things to do, so many things to say. He needed time to mull over his options and dissect his feelings, needed to carefully pick out words to best convey this tumultuous mix of feelings unfurling within him to his friend, to tell him just how  much of a friend to him he was - something which he realized had always gone unsaid and was long overdue for change.

For now though, much to his self-disgust, he could only offer Yamaguchi a muttered ‘thanks’.

Yamaguchi, who always did react to his smallest actions like he had been promised the moon.

“No problem, Tsukki!” he said, lips pulling up into the sight of an all-familiar little grin that caused his cheeks to curve further and his nose to crinkle. 

“Oi, you two!” Tanaka shouted, waving his chopsticks around. “Quit your chatter and appreciate how delicious Kiyoko-san’s cooking is, already!”

“Yeah!” embellished Nishinoya enthusiastically. “Kiyoko-san, this soup tastes great! Give me another bowl!”

“Actually,” Kiyoko said. Tsukishima couldn’t help but muse that it was nothing short of amazing how such a soft voice could cut through the ruckus so cleanly, in a manner and significance not unlike the way Moses parted the Red Sea. “Tsukishima made the soup today.”

Said soup left Nishinoya’s mouth in an impressive spray.

“ _T-T-T-T-Ts_ -”

No, seriously, were Hinata and Tanaka cut from the same cloth or something?

“Whoa, Tsukishima,” Sugawara-san said, looking up from sampling the soup. “This is your cooking? It’s pretty good!”

“He was wearing an apron and everything!” Hinata was crying out to Yachi, looking extremely traumatized. Beside him, Kageyama looked the same way. “So scary…!”

A wide variety of emotions shuffled through Tanaka’s expressive face - from realization to blank shock, to horror, to a thoughtful frown and back to realization again.

“You…!” He dashed over to Tsukishima like a bull with a target and grabbed his collar. Yamaguchi squeaked. “You sly manipulative bastard…!

How dare you spend time with the beautiful Kiyoko-san alone in the kitchen!!”

“Yeah!” Nishinoya leapt to his feet, jabbing his chopsticks at Tsukishima accusingly. Tsukishima could feel his braincells dying by the bucket load with every second he spent in the presence of these overly energetic imbeciles. “How many hours did you get to spend with a gorgeous, apron-wearing Kiyoko-san, huh?? Not that she isn’t gorgeous every second of the day… but! Apron!”

Tsukishima’s lip curled in his scorn even as he swung his verbal mace in rapid pivots, readying for battle. Every word he spit out next were blows unto themselves and true to his skill, absolutely none of them missed their mark.

“ _Firstly_ , if you were  finally able to differentiate salt from sports drinks, you might be allowed back into the kitchen long enough to boil water. _Se-cond-ly_ ,” he drawled, raising his voice over Nishinoya who had turned several interesting shades of red and had opened his mouth for a loud protest, “I was making soup, not panting after her like she was prettily packaged  _meat_ . Do you even realize how uncomfortable she got when you talked about her like  that ?”

Both Tanaka and Nishinoya looked as though they had simultaneously entered cardiac arrest. Azumane-san had gone pale and placed a hand over his mouth. Sugawara-san’s eyes were wide and stared at Tsukishima in shock. The Captain’s expression wavered between concern for the second years and reluctant approval of the first year.

Kiyoko merely stoically said, “Tsukishima.”

He looked to her. Kiyoko held up a humble bowl of miso soup with steam arising out of it in gentle, aromatic curls, using fingers of one hand to hold the mouth of the bowl daintily and fingers of the other to support its bottom.

“Ah,” he said simply, reaching out to receive it. “Thank you, Shimizu-senpai.”

The piece of kabu that had frozen centimetres away from Yamaguchi’s mouth fell back into his soup with a loud wet ‘plop’. 

With a small grin from Shimizu, Tsukishima and her proceeded to murmur a synchronized ‘itadakimasu’ and tuck into their dinner quietly, as though they hadn’t just dropped three bombs in a row over their teammates’ heads.

For the second time in fifteen minutes, the dining area exploded in a fusillade of noise.

###

Tuning out the boisterous shouting of Karasuno’s volleyball club, Kiyoko tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and tucked into her dinner demurely. When she had just about finished half her plate of fried rice, she noticed one of the first years boggling at her across the table from the other end of the room. Upon realizing she had caught him in the act, he jerked in surprise and bowed his head in frantic apology, trying to look in every direction but her until curiosity won out and he peeked shyly at her again.

Beside him, Tsukishima wordlessly snapped his chopsticks in front of his face. With that single action, his face cleared like the fresh, crisp days of spring and all of his attention previously on her immediately refocused onto the person beside him. It was like watching sunflowers track the Sun in adoration; like watching moonflowers bloom under the first gentle touch of the moon’s glow. 

Kiyoko hid her smile in her bowl.

It seemed that there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.


End file.
